Planters on 4th Ave Cited for Clearance, Yet There is 36 Inches

(6 August 2019) Department of Sanitation, Street Services, cited the installation of planters on 4th Ave, Monday, at 1:40 pm for being in violation of LAMC 56.08(e)1.

Approximately 30 planters were installed on west side of 4th Ave Monday from Rose to the Venice Community Housing project, several hundred feet from Sunset. Actually, planters paralleled Public Storage property.

Ordinance 56.08(e)1 states

(e) (Amended by Ord. No. 128,577, Eff. 11/14/64.)

1. No person having charge or control of any lot or premises, either as owner, lessee, tenant, builder, contractor, housemover, or otherwise, shall construct, deposit or maintain any structure, building, rock, brick, broken concrete, stepping stones, sprinkler heads or any obstacle of any nature whatsoever in or upon any street, sidewalk or parkway abutting on or adjacent to such lot or premises or which will interfere with the free passage of pedestrians or vehicles along such street, sidewalk or parkway.

We will recommend that all vegetation / obstructions be removed 1 to 3 ft. back from the curb face.

As measured by two LAPD police officers, the sidewalk to fence maintained more than 36 inches which is necessary for the Federal ADA clearance. The other side of the planters had approximately two feet. Perhaps, inspector did not have proper measuring tools.

One lady who lived on street made the comment after installation of the planters that finally a wheelchair could get by. She said she thought there were a couple of people in the VCH complex that required wheelchairs and they could not use 4th Ave on west side when homeless were residing there.

Comments (42)

You can thank the VSA, VNC and Venice United for giving all evidence to authorities very ignorantly.

They are responsible for almost all boxes in Venice and we’re trying to install them everywhere illegally to displace homeless people.
What else would you expect from the people with a lawsuit to stop homeless housing programs.
They don’t want change, they want hate.

I’m going to paint a picture for those of you I’m presuming are healthy and able bodied. I’m a retired, disabled 66 year old man. Wheel chair bound to be more specific. I’ve lived in Venice just about my entire life (a few years spent elsewhere – but that’s probably irrelevant). The salient point here is – I’m not a disruptive transplant. I also don’t have extreme view points, not on either side of the aisle. What I do have is a literal inability to safely get around my very own sidewalks because of a lack of regulation for squatters. Setting up throw rugs, dressers, lamps, decorative plants and other luxury items along our sidewalks hardly qualifies these folks as desperately needy. I saw someone charging an iPhone – yet camping on my streets. I digress. These planters provided a shining, bright spot (albeit brief) in my otherwise challenging life. Perhaps we can have some intelligent discourse around why a beautification effort prompted our city to rapidly mobilize (and use tax payer money to deconstruct the planters) yet rampant drug use and community exploitation is dismissed and accepted as common place. I’m quite honestly baffled and sad. Until we align on a solution, you can find me planning alternate, navigable routes for my wheelchair.

BSS, vector control and City of Los Angeles deemed them rats nests because of the rats living in them. There’s three people living in the boxes currently at the post office and one of them is a toilet
For bus drivers.

More neighbors praising these planter boxes on 4th.Prayers answered, thank you public storage, FINALLY!! These planters are the best thing that has happened in the 5 years I have lived on this street. Finally I can come home at night and not feel threatened and deeply uncomfortable, finally I can sleep through the night without endless screaming and fighting directly outside my bedroom window, finally I can come out of my house in the morning and not find pee and poop in every corner of my front door and garage area.. I simply cannot understand why anyone except the people who were camping, fighting, taking drugs, stealing bikes, and using our street as a toilet would want these planters to be removed.
Please allow them to remain here, I beg you.

Life long Venetian and the hate being written here is outrageous! We need to realize that the energy you use to hate the unhoused could be used to find solutions. The planter boxes are not the solution, and especially if there not legal. Thank you Matt for doing your job as VNC person you’re appreciated. Thank you Adam for your perseverance it’s appreciated. VENICE LIVES
“if you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it ,change your attitude.” Maya Angelou

Laddie Williams is also a member of the small list of a dozen people who are part of the anti-planter group, yes? Just in case anyone new to this page thinks these are all complete concerned strangers chiming in, and not a coordinated group functioning as an echo chamber.

Someone really needs to look into how and why a handful of people all connected to saving the Venice Baptist Church, the VNC, K-Town For All, and businesses in Santa Monica, are dictating how Venice citizens have to live in filth.

What slander? You knock out these planters boxes on 4th you will bring the tents closer to the rodent burrows and their fleas increasing their chances of Rat to flea to human diseases. If you can’t understand that simple concept why don’t you go down to this area and ask the homeless about rats they see at night. That will help you understand the real threat we face here.

If you can’t understand the simple fact we need to follow all laws, then it’s pointless trying to talk to you.

I want everyone and everything off OUR sidewalks, including your pet rats. I want all laws to make sense and not contradict each other. I want laws that reflect today, not 1960, where you are stuck. The old generation is to blame. It’s time to step into the present and reclaim our title as a progressive city, not a hateful one.

I visit the area everyday and since you are so invested in the homeless communities well being, I will let them know who you are and your actual views, so they can make the most of your future visits!

Please allow me to invite you to 3rd Ave for its been in my backyard for 40 years. You can help me pass out flea collars to dog owners and meet the neighbors here too. Its a great way to meet the folks that camp there Matt.

You should complain all laws are not being enforced if you ever want to get past this era. We are on a slippery slope with nimbys pouring gas on the fire at the bottom. This situation will get way worse before it gets better and it’s because of this ignorance. Venice update had all real facts to this story, but chose to lie. Just like all the people with no clue about what’s going on spreading lies to create fear. We should be worried about
56.11 & 41.18 being amended to not enforce people blocking sidewalks, nimbys with 20 lawsuits against homelessness that all lost and continue to hold up all our progress and cause this treatment, and of course space cadets helping rats instead of people.
Pick up a broom and clean around your properties, get some rat traps and get your butts to the meetings if you want to actually change something. Lying online doesn’t work if you haven’t noticed. We can get past all this if we stick together and stop this lying. Venice is a dumping ground for a reason, don’t be that reason like the other idiots. We will get through this and have a better Venice than any of us ever imagined.

Someone took the initiative to beautify our neighborhood while simultaneously allowing pedestrians to once again actually use the sidewalks. The real crime here is a law that says that this is wrong but reverting to unsanitary homeless encampment is right. Bravo to the local community hero who did this. You’re an inspiration to your community.

Some jerks that don’t give a shit about the homeless camping next to rat burrows are going after the planter boxes.These planter boxes not only are beautiful for our community they also protect these sidewalk campers from sleeping right next to rat burrows and catching rat and flea diseases like the Bubonic Plague and spreading it through out our neighborhood!

I’m glad the More Woker Than Thou Squad has decided that drug-dealing bums and tents blocking ADA access have more rights than the elderly with walkers and wheelchairs in the neighborhood who can’t get through, but I have to ask what the end game is. Is it to punish people they see as gentrifiers, even though those of us who’ve lived here all along and are POC ourselves pay the cost and have to live in feces and rats?

All planter boxes on concrete sidewalks or parkways are illegal as per LAMC 56.08 and ordinance 183474. Owner planting is only allowed in existing dirt or grass areas, if rules are followed. These boxes were issued 30 citations and the owners will be fined for removal. Department of Street Services issued citations and are handling the new investigation into every illegal planter box in LA and who put them there. All boxes on concrete are illegal and will be removed. All parties involved will be prosecuted with civil and criminal charges.

Matt, I am sure you are also fighting the lawlessness of the encampments too, right? The blocking of entire sidewalks (at least the planters were ADA compliant), tents up 24/7 vs. the allowable 9 pm – 6 am, the theft, illegal dumping, etc.

What’s that…you’re not fighting that lawlessness?? As a VNC member, aren’t you supposed to be representing ALL Venice constiuents or are you a chip of the Bonin block?

Encampment ordinances are being amended to reflect the Supreme Court decision, nothing I can do. They have refused my help with it and many other things. I don’t control anyone, or make any laws, and I represent the stakeholders who support the actual enforceable laws and human rights. I understand your confusion and fear, feel free to contact me if you have any real questions and you can use your real name.

The courts have ruled that these encampments are not illegal due to the fact that there is no shelter here for them to go to. These planters, on the other hand, are illegal. They should be removed before somebody goes all vigilante on you and removes them for you.

So people can become vigilante because of flower boxes but people who have to put up with feces, trash, craziness, open drug use, crime, harassment, having to walk in the street to get around encampments and being kept up ‘til all hours of the night with screaming and fighting are supposed to keep their cool?

Actually, Zeke, you are wrong about the encampments not being being illegal…even they need to leave a 36″ passage according to ADA laws and aren’t supposed to have tents up between 6 am – 9 pm. But, let’s be honest here…people crying fowl that the planters aren’t ADA compliant (they were) are just using that as a lame-ass excuse because they prefer blight, filth, human waste, fights, theft, etc on their neighborhood streets. I will never understand that mentality.

You gotta be the biggest dumbass in the world to think this is because someone prefers crime or filth. There are contradicting laws in place. Encampments are technically legal right now. That’s the real problem, and you haters won’t build housing because you are jealous a homeless person is receiving care and you are not. Must suck to be so entitled a cactus is worth more than human rights.

That’s the collective stupidity of City Hall and the 9nth c court and all who support its rulings. Because it’s been ruled “legal” doesn’t make it morally right to have criminals forced onto a once peaceful community.

Not only that, the homeless encampments were forcing pedestrians into the street to walk through. Last week when I drove on 4th there was barely enough room for one car to get through, cars were having to stop to let people walk down the street. How are Mike Bonin’s favored people more important than everyone else??? Pedestrians could easily get hit by not being able to use the sidewalks.

Please read, study, and make effort to not be racist and to be better people please. I know you can do much better.

RACISM (definition excerpt)

PREJUDICE
An attitude based on limited information, often on stereotypes. Prejudice is usually, but not always, negative. Positive and negative prejudices alike, especially when directed toward oppressed people, are damaging because they deny the individuality of the person. In some cases, the prejudices of oppressed people (“you can’t trust the police”) are necessary for survival. No one is free of prejudice.

Examples: Women are emotional. Asians are good at math.

OPPRESSION
The systematic subjugation of one social group by a more powerful social group for the social, economic, and political benefit of the more powerful social group. Rita Hardiman and Bailey Jackson state that oppression exists when the following 4 conditions are found:

-the oppressor group has the power to define reality for themselves and others,
-the targeted groups take in and internalize the negative messages about them and end up cooperating with the oppressors (thinking and acting like them),

genocide, harassment, and discrimination are systematic and institutionalized, so that individuals are not necessary to keep it going, and,

-members of both the oppressor and target groups are socialized to play their roles as normal and correct.

Oppression = Power + Prejudice

SOCIAL and INSTITUTIONAL POWER
-access to resources
-the ability to influence others
-access to decision-makers to get what you want done
-the ability to define reality for yourself and others

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